My beautiful Shetland ewe "Tasha" died this morning and I am absolutely heartbroken. I noticed her on Sunday morning, staying away from the other sheep in her group and she wouldn't come over for a little grain or cracked corn. Sunday afternoon I moved her group up to the barn and tryed to coax her to eat but she wouldn't. I called and talked to Deb the Vet and she had me give 3 c.c. of Vit B complex and I gave some gastri-gard. I also e-mailed the Vet Sunday night and Monday morning Stephen arrived at 11 a.m. He checked her all over and said her pupils were very dilated and the lining of her eyes were very red......after checking her thoroughly, he felt it was some sort of toxic poisoning. He gave her I.V. banamine and had me use a 20 c.c. syringe to feed her alfalfa powder with a rumen powder/mixed in warm water. I fed her twice on Monday and Tuesday and gave her another dose of Banamine yesterday. I went back out last night late and she just stood in the stall with her chin on the gate looking so incredibly sad. I had put her in a stall with her mother Daisy. When I went down the stairs this morning, I knew she was already gone before i even got in the stall.

What a beautiful, sweet sheep Tasha was and she was with our new ram Thistle as soon as he got out of the crate. We wrote a funny little story about Tasha and Thistle in their own little shed and I was thrilled thinking of what sweet little lambs she would have. I will add on a picture of Tasha and then I'm headed to bed. This has just drained the life out of me to have this happen. I feel like I really let her down not getting on this sooner. This is the part of farming that I really don't like but it goes with the job.

Oh Kathleen, I am so sorry about Tasha!! It broke my heart to read this post from California. I wanted to check on how all of my friends are doing and what a terrible piece of news this was! You're so right...this is the part of farming that we all hate.Wishing you a better day today and a Merry Christmas tomorrow.Donna